As wireless technology has advanced, a variety of wireless networks have been installed, such as cellular, wireless LAN (local area network) or WLAN, and other wireless networks. Some wireless networks are based upon the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of Wireless LAN (WLAN) industry specifications, or other IEEE specifications, for example. Other wireless networks are based on cellular technologies, such as Global System For Mobile Communications (GSM), for example. Some networks are being developed based on other standards or technologies, such as WiMedia ultra-wideband (UWB) common radio platform to augment the convergence platform with TCP/IP services. A number of working groups are working to improve on these various technologies. These are merely a few examples of wireless networks, and a number of other wireless networks and technologies exist or are being developed.
Wireless networks often suffer from resource management problems. Network resources are frequently used inefficiently. For example, in some instances, some links may be congested, while other links may be idle. Some nodes in the network may be occupying a resource for long periods of time, while other nodes may be resource starved or may have been waiting long periods of time without being served. Some Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) may be extremely busy or congested, while other APs may be idle or have unused resources. Traffic congestion, unbalanced resource usage and unfairness are common problems for wireless networks.
Many networks employ a centralized resource management, where a centralized entity may collect information from each of the other network entities (e.g., APs or BSs), and then make resource allocation decisions for the different entities in the network(s). As networks grow or increase in number of entities within the network, a centralized resource management solution may have a number of disadvantages, such as creating a significant amount of signaling overhead and increasing complexity.